Thai monks from the Sisaket province have used over one million recycled glass
bottle to construct their Buddhist temple. Mindfulness is at the center of the
Buddhist discipline and the dedication and thoughtfulness required to build
everything from the toilets to their crematorium from recycled bottles shows
what creativity and elbow grease can accomplish.

The Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew temple is about 400 miles northeast of Bangkok in
the city of Khun Han close to the Cambodian border. Using Heineken bottles
(green) and Chang Beer bottles (brown) the monks were able to clean up the
local pollution and create a useful structure that will be a visual reminder
to the scope of pollution and the potential we can make with limber minds.

The water tower and tourist bathrooms are even made from beer bottle litter.
The monks were able to have the local people bring them the building materials
which beautifully reflect the Thai sun.

the greenUPGRADER has several pictures of the recent buddhist temple in Thailand.

Of course this isn’t the first glass bottle building. In this picture you can see friends making some more empties available for building with at Rhyolite, Nevada in Death Valley. How’s that for ruffin’ it? Go to the desert and drink your way to shelter. No wonder its a ghost town.

“In the old ghost town of Rhyolite, Nevada, a saloon owner named Tom Kelly, built a house out of bottles because lumber was scarce at the time. Reportedly he used some 50,000 beer, whiskey, soda and medicine bottles to build the structure which still stands today. Mr. Kelley was 76 years old when he built the house and it took him almost six months to complete.”

It is not surprising that the monks had used Heineken bottles as Alfred Heineken in 1960 had devised the ‘World Bottle’ or WOBO for short. As the story goes, Alfred Heineken had an epiphany while on a world tour of Heineken factories. When Heineken was on the Caribbean island of Curacao in 1960 he saw many bottles littering the beach due to the fact that the island had no economic means of returning the bottles to the bottling plants from which they had come. He was also concerned with the lack of affordable building materials and the inadequate living conditions plaguing Curacao’s lower-class. Envisioning a solution for these problems, he found a dutch architect John Habraken to design what he called “a brick that holds beer.”

Over the next three years, the Heineken WOBO went through a design process. Some of the early designs were of interlocking and self-aligning bottles. The idea sprung from the belief that the need for mortar would add complexity and expense to the bottle wall’s simplicity and affordability. Some designs proved to be effective building materials but too heavy and slow-forming to be economically produced. Other designs were rejected by Heineken based on aesthetic preferences. In the end, the bottle that was selected was a compromise between the previous designs.

The bottle was designed to be interlocking, laid horizontally and bonded with cement mortar with a silicon additive. A 10 ft x 10 ft shack would take approximately 1,000 bottles to build. In 1963, 100,000 WOBO’s were produced in two sizes, 350 and 500 mm. This size difference was necessary in order to bond the bottles when building a wall, in the same way as a half brick is necessary when building with bricks.Unfortunately most of them are destroyed and no bottles are left. They are very rare and become a collectors item.

Only two WOBO structures exist and they are both on the Heineken estate in Noordwijk, near Amsterdam. The first was a small shed which had a corrugated iron roof and timber supports where the builder could not work out how to resolve the junction between necks and bases running in the same direction. Later, a timber double garage was renovated with WOBO siding. Alfred Heineken did not develop the WOBO concept further and the idea never got a chance to materialize.

The lack of support for the WOBO idea didn’t slow bottle buildings from popping up. I remember visiting the George Plumb’s ‘Glass Castle’ near Duncan, BC. Which was destroyed to make way for highway expansion. I still have some classic bottles from there before it was cleared away.

With the economic crisis I’m sure we will see more people pushed to the fringe and become desperate and build shelter with whatever is available where they are. Check out UNHOUSED for links and papers on squatting, madhousers, slum tv and Zero Yen Houses.

The FM3 Buddha Machine is a creation of FM3, a China-based music duo of Christiaan Virant and Zhang Jian. They are best known as the creators of the Buddha Machine （貝佛） loop-player. Inspired by buddhist chants and ambient loops a la Brian Eno, the duo made the first Buddha Machine in 2006. Since then over 50,000 have sold worldwide, and in November 2008, the new version is ready to go.

Basically just a small box with 9 ambient loops (300 seconds) that can be selected with a volume knob and now a pitch bend. Check out Zendesk which has put together a FM3 Buddha Machine Wall with 21 of them to help you reach satori.

Grey Filastine is a nomandic revolutionary hailing from Seattle and now based in Barcelona, but rarely found there. Infamous for his ongoing assault in the war for the hearts and minds of people everywhere, including his past projects Tchkung! and Infernal Noise Brigade. A true inspiration he travels the world collecting sound and recording deeply touching music and then remixing into one subversive siren. He takes his sound everywhere, playing over 60+ gigs last year you might have caught him at a dubstep party in Vancouver, or a junk raft floating down the Mississippi , at anti G-8 demonstrations in Tokyo, or in front of forty thousand at the Boulevards festival in Casablanca. In any context it gets riotous- Filastine bangs out his music, jumping between a tangle of electronics, acoustic percussion, and an amplified shopping cart, firing off riddims and synchronized live video.

In 2006 Filastine dropped his debut release, Burn It, to much critical acclaim. Vibrant and original, Burn It made inroads among music fans from the hiphop, world, electronic, and experimental scenes; it was snatched up and re-released by French label Jarring Effects, Japanese label Romz, and US anarcho-collective Crimethinc. Tracks from the album received airplay on the radio shows of Mary Anne Hobbes & John Peel, and in France peaked at #15 in national independent radio charts. Less visible are the spins on pirate stations across Latin America, or the more than fifty thousand downloads of his dj mix commissioned by Blentwell.com.

With his sophmore album, Dirty Bomb, Filastine returns with a gritty transnational soundclash of urban rhythm. Freely splicing dubstep with balkan brass or hiphop with bollywood, Dirty Bomb parties in the mud puddle of our increasingly polluted world. Kick drums beat out rapid patterns for dances yet to be invented. Rich acoustic strings merge with programmed synths. Bits of field recordings and radio static degrade the signal. Each featured voice is sourced from an on-site collaboration. Over the contorted crunk of “Hungry Ghosts” rap aboriginal Australian Wire mc and Japan’s ECD, underground rap icons of their respective countries. Closing the albums is teen gypsy La Perla, recorded in a squatted cave in Andalusia.

while at home I like to practice my 10,000 hand dance to keep fit. of course the hard part was mastering The Shadow Clone Technique (影分身の術Kage Bunshin no Jutsu_“Art of the Shadow Doppelganger” from the Naruto videos.

The Practice of Essential Phowa

First sit quietly and settle yourself, bringing all the energies of your mind and body back home. As far as possible, relax into the deep presence and spacious awareness of your being. Before you begin, arouse a strong compassionate aspiration such as that described in The Tibetan Book of the Dead: “By means of this death, I will adopt only the attitude of the enlightened state of mind, loving kindness, and compassion, and attain perfect enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings who are as limitless as space.”

Invocation

With all your heart, invoke in the sky before you the presence of a buddha or a Divine Being for whom you feel a devotion. See the form of this Presence, not as flesh and blood, but as radiant light. Recognize that this being’s qualities of perfect wisdom, boundless compassion, and limitless power to benefit beings are no different from the qualities of your own wisdom nature.

Consider this Divine Presence you have invoked is actually present–alive, breathing, and gazing toward you with kindness and love. If you cannot clearly visualize a buddha or Divine Being, then simply imagine that a brilliant and loving Presence, who is the embodiment of truth, is in the sky in front of you, in the form of light. Allow yourself to relax deeply and establish a personal connection with this Presence you have invoked.

Calling out

Open yourself now, and acknowledge the aspects of your being that need purification, forgiveness, and blessing. Acknowledge any regrets, harm, negativity, or destructive emotions that you want to release and purify. Become aware of any places in your body where there is disease, weakness, or even a fear of illness. And recognize any doubts, fears, or old wounds in your heart that need healing and love. Then call out sincerely to the Divine Presence in front of you and ask for help.

Receiving the blessing

Immediately this buddha or Divine Presence responds, sending love and compassion from his or her heart in a stream of tremendous rays of light directly into your being. Allow these powerful rays to penetrate you and purify you–filling you with forgiveness, healing energy, confidence and unconditional love. Consider that these brilliant light rays of compassion and love dissolve all of your fears and defenses, so that you are totally immersed in light. To make yourself more receptive, you may want to recite a short prayer or mantra during this part of the practice.

Visualize that this profound blessing streaming towards you purifies and transforms every aspect of your body and mind–even your painful memories, part harm and regrets. Then, after some time, consider that the purification has been completely effected, so much so that your whole being–body and mind–is entirely transformed into light. Now your being in the form of light rises up and dissolves into the heart of this Divine Presence–completely mixing with it, like light mixing with light.

Remain in this peaceful state as long as you can. This non-dual, natural simplicity and inspired openness is your being. If thoughts rise, or a “sense of self” begins to form, simply allow them to dissolve back into emptiness. Letting go, naturally remain.

At the conclusion, consider that your awareness is once again centered within your body. Resolve to continue the presence of pure, clear awareness as you enter into daily activities. And when you notice that you have lost it, gently bring your mind home to its true nature, again and again.

Dedicate your practice

Dedicate your practice as you conclude, sharing the merit of blessings and wisdom with all beings, praying that, in whatever ways you can, you may be able to relieve their suffering, bring them happiness, and, ultimately, help them to realize the abiding peace of their deathless, true nature of mind.

In the jungles of Nepal under a tree sits Ram Bahadur Bamjan, the “buddha boy”. He has spent most of his time in the forest mediating since 2005, and many claim he has don so without food or water most of the time? This mysterious boy born in 1990, now 18, has tens of thousands of followers who flock to see him when he makes rare times for talking.

Recently, on November 12, Ram Bahadur Bamjan came out of the jungles of Ratanpur, 100 miles south of Katmandu, and thousands of people traveled long distance to see him. According to Kamal Tamang, a Buddhist priest, on November 18, 2008, Bamjan is expected to address his followers and then retreat back into the forest. His official site says; Nine days of prayer and blessings will be conducted by Guru Palden Dorje from November 10 – 18, 2008.

In 2006, Bomjan said “there is no peace here” and that he would finish his six years of meditation in roughly 2012.

On August 2, 2007 Bomjon addressed a large crowd in Hallori jungle in Bara district of southern Nepal. An excerpt of that speech:

Murder, violence, greed, anger and temptation have made the human world a desperate place. A terrible storm has descended upon the human world, and this is carrying the world towards destruction. There is only one way to save the world and that is through dharma (spiritual practice). When one doesn’t walk the righteous path of spiritual practice, this desperate world will surely be destroyed. Therefore, follow the path of spirituality and spread this message to your fellows. Never put obstacles, anger and disbelief in the way of my meditation’s mission. I am only showing you the way; you must seek it on your own. What I will be, what I will do, the coming days will reveal. Human salvation, the salvation of all living beings, and peace in the world are my goal and my path. “Namo Buddha sangaya, Namo Buddha sangaya, namo sangaya.”